Before the world fell in love with
Kate Middleton, there was a persistent narrative that she somehow executed a grand plan to meet and marry
Prince William. A new biography of the Duchess of Cambridge is bringing that story back to life.

Katie Nicholl, a Vanity Fair contributor who has written several books about the royal family, has just published
"Kate: The Future Queen," a biography of the duchess. Appearing on
"Katie" Tuesday (Sept. 17), Nicholl told
Katie Couric she discovered that rather than the "official" story that William and Kate met at the University of St., they actually encountered one another prior to that. Nicholl explains in this clip:

Kate was at the time planning to attend the University of Edinburgh. She changed her mind, took a gap year (a fairly common practice in the U.K.) and enrolled at St. Andrews instead, where she and William became friends and eventually started dating.

Nicholl's telling, though, makes it sound as though Kate is, essentially,
"Felicity," with the prince as Ben. We'd like to imagine that somewhere in Scotland, a former St. Andrews RA named Noel is now happily married to a woman named Zoe but still occasionally thinks about the one who got away.